NORTHERN IRELAND

Equality Commission for Northern Ireland

Paul Murphy: Under s73(2) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, I have appointed four new commissioners to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. They are Anthony Carlin, Una Gillespie, Thomas McGrath and Paul Yam.
	The appointments take effect from 1 August 2004 and last for three years.

Laganside Corporation Annual Report

John Spellar: The annual report and accounts of the Laganside Corporation (NIA 42/03) for the year ended 31 March 2004 incorporating the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General will be laid before the NI Assembly on Wednesday 14 July 2004.
	Copies of the NI Assembly paper have been placed in the House of Commons Library at Westminster and in the NI Assembly at Stormont.

ENVIRONMENT FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

Draft Animal Welfare Bill

Ben Bradshaw: I am pleased to announce today the publication of the draft Animal Welfare Bill.
	The draft Bill seeks to consolidate and modernise over 20 pieces of animal welfare legislation relating to farmed and non-farmed animals, some of which date back to 1911. It follows a public consultation held in 2002, and meetings with over 100 welfare organisations, professional veterinary associations and industry groups.
	The Bill introduces into our law a clear definition of cruelty against an animal and provides the courts, the police and government law enforcement agencies with the powers that are needed to deal effectively with people who ill-treat or neglect animals in their care. The Bill also extends a duty to promote animal welfare—currently present in farmed animal legislation—to all animal keepers. This will mean that all domestic or captive animals must be cared for in accordance with good animal husbandry practices and the best available scientific knowledge concerning welfare needs This is a major improvement to current welfare laws which are often based on the view that good welfare is about taking action after an animal has suffered.
	The Bill will also provide powers to introduce secondary legislation and codes of practice to protect the welfare of non-farmed animals kept by man. This enabling power is already available for farmed animals and our aim is to ensure that in future all domestic and captive animals will be protected by legislation that can be easily revised to take account of changing welfare needs and increased scientific knowledge.
	Copies are also available on The Stationery Office website at http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm62/6252/6252.htm

Veterinary Laboratories Agency

Ben Bradshaw: Today, I am pleased to announce that I have set the following performance targets for 2004–05 for the Veterinary Laboratories Agency.
	Financial
	Achieve full cost recovery.
	Efficiency
	Establish an efficiency plan to enable breakeven by 2005–06. This includes:
	Achieve £1 million procurement savings.
	Keep the increase in full economic cost for the test portfolio below the Treasury inflator.
	Maintain the ratio of overheads against turnover to 03–04 level.
	Identify options for rationalisation and their implications.
	Service delivery
	Meet 85 per cent. ROAME milestones.
	Set a baseline for deliverables for surveillance contracts.
	Improve the customer satisfaction score from last year and implement actions plans as necessary.
	Quality
	Implement VLA's quality strategy. This includes:
	Maintaining current third party accreditations.
	Achieve compliance with Defra's Joint Code of Practice for Research by July 2004.
	Achieve ISO 14001 compliance at the Weybridge main site.
	Achieve UKAS 17025 group accreditation for mammalian influenza work.
	Safety
	Implement the VLA safety plan to timescales indicated.

TREASURY

Double Taxation Agreement (United Kingdom and Georgia)

Dawn Primarolo: A double taxation agreement with Georgia was signed on 13 July 2004. After signature, the text of the agreement was deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and made available on the Inland Revenue's website. The text of the agreement will be scheduled to a draft order in council and laid before the House of Commons in due course.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

Draft Statutory Guidance (Director of Fair Access to Higher Education)

Alan Johnson: I have today placed in the Library of the House copies of the new draft letter of statutory guidance from the Secretary of State to the director of fair access (commonly known as the Office for Fair Access or OFFA).
	On 23 February 2004 the Secretary of State published the draft regulations and guidance on OFFA as the Higher Education Bill made its way to Committee stage in the House of Commons.
	Since that time the Bill has received Royal Assent and some important amendments have been made. Now that the Bill has become an Act and we have advertised for the post of the director of fair access, the Secretary of State has issued a new draft letter of statutory guidance to the new director. New draft regulations were published on 7 July and copies laid in the Library of the House.
	We are determined to ensure that access to higher education is broadened, not narrowed. That is why the new director of fair access will have such an important role. Now that we have advertised for the post of director it is important to remind all those interested of the function, powers and responsibilities. OFFA will be necessary, focused, non-bureaucratic, powerful, independent, open and nothing to do with admissions.
	The new director will be in post by the autumn and this letter suggests how he/she might approach the approval and monitoring of institutions' access agreements. The judgments that the director will exercise in ensuring fair access will have far-reaching consequences. And his/her freedom to challenge institutions where necessary will be an important safeguard and public reassurance.
	The new draft letter reflects changes made to the Bill. The key changes are:
	Admissions and academic freedom
	The HE Act now makes crystal clear, on the face of the Bill, that OFFA cannot infringe on academic freedom, ensuring OFFA is concentrated single-mindedly on widening access.
	Good practice
	A Government amendment in both Houses.
	Part-time education and OFFA
	A Government amendment responded to concern expressed in both Houses about the position of part-time students. It makes plain that while OFFA's prime focus is on the regulation of full time fees its remit includes safeguarding and promoting access to both full-time and part-time study. The amendment sends a clear signal in primary legislation about the importance the Government attach to part-time study.
	Reasonableness and sanctions
	It is a general principle of law that a body such as OFFA has to act reasonably. This amendment, prevents sanctions being imposed if an institution has done all it possibly can to comply with its access agreement. It safeguards institutions from being penalised for problems outside their control. Failure to meet their own milestones is not of itself grounds for any sanction. But where progress is less than expected, OFFA will take into account whether any underlying causes have been identified and addressed by the institution when considering renewal.
	Review
	This amendment allows institutions to seek a review of decisions made by OFFA to an independent person or panel. The panel will only be able to ask OFFA to look again at a decision, for instance in the light of new information. This is a sensible position for a new regulator, and ensures a fair deal for institutions as well as students.
	Gap Years
	Paragraph 4.2 of the letter reminds institutions that they should not charge higher fees to students who took a gap year and deferred their entry from the 2005–06 academic year to 2006–07.
	The key principles set out in the letter of guidance are that OFFA should be well focused, non-bureaucratic and open to views from within the sector.

WORK AND PENSIONS

Social Fund/Social Fund Commissioner (Annual Reports)

Andrew Smith: My annual report on the social fund for 2003–04 (Cm 6235) was published today and has been laid before Parliament.
	The report records that total gross expenditure in 2003–04, excluding winter fuel payments, was £857.7 million. This included more than 256,000 non-repayable grants and more than 2,300,000 interest free loans together worth £686.6 million, and funeral and cold weather payments totalling £50.7 million. In addition, around 238,000 Sure Start maternity grants worth £120.4 million were made, and 8 million households benefited from a winter fuel payment at a cost of around £1.9 billion.
	The social fund commissioner's report has also been published today and placed in the Library.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Rent Restructuring Review

Keith Hill: The Government's policy for ensuring that social rents in England are fair, affordable and less confusing for tenants was set out in the December 2000 policy statement "The Way Forward for Housing".
	The proposals outlined in that policy document were refined and consulted upon throughout 2001, leading to the introduction of the policy on rent restructuring for social rents, to run for 10 years from April 2002. At the time of implementation we indicated that there would be a review of the way the policy is operating during the third year to ensure that policy objectives are on track.
	A review of the first three years of the policy implementation has recently been completed, with a steering group membership comprised of representatives from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, local authority associations, the Housing Corporation and the National Housing Federation. The remit of the review has been to gather evidence, data and intelligence on the effects of the policy, and examine specific issues where fine-tuning adjustments to our approach would make sense for tenants and landlords.
	Evidence from the review shows that the policy is generally working well for both landlords and tenants. The review therefore recommends no significant changes to the existing policy. However, it does recommend three refinements:
	changing the formula for larger properties so that there is a greater difference between the rents of various sizes of property;
	restructuring local authority rents on the same basis as housing association rents;
	ensuring that where local authority rents are currently higher than the formula, they drop to meet it by 2011–12 at the latest.
	The results of this review have now been brought together in a consultation paper, copies of which are being made available in the Libraries of both Houses, and will be available on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website www.odpm.gov.uk/.
	Interested parties have until 30 September to comment on the proposals.